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Forum:Incorporate real history?
This may sound like a silly question, but should we incorporate real-world history (well, that that isn't portrayed in the films/TV series/books/comics, etc.) into the character articles, etc.? Should we combine this with the in-universe information? Adamwankenobi 21:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC) : I think it is important to probably distinguish the fact from the fiction - the real-world history. perhaps historical figures should have two main sections: a short real-world biography, and their role in the world of Indiana Jones. i was thinking a little about this when writing up Anthony Fokker. in the past, we've sort of done this for historical figures: one or two sentences that sum up who they are, then an explanation of their role in the Indy's world, and any extra biographical information has gone into the "Behind the Scenes" bit. if we want to come up with a better way to present this, i'm game. Jawajames 02:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC) ::Yeah, you're right. That makes sense. Adamwankenobi 06:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC) :::Is this the Indy Wiki's official position? Because I've been noticing a LOT of real-world information being added to things like country articles that don't appear to have any backing in official Indy material. jSarek 02:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC) ::::I don't think there's an official position on anything. ;) [[User:Vetinari|'Vetinari']] (Appointment) 07:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC) What about the birth-death dates of the persons' infobox? For example it is not mentioned when Franz Kafka was born or died, yet we incorporated this info not in a BtS section but in the infobox. MoffRebus 09:45, 5 June 2008 (UTC) : i'd say that unless the indyverse directly contradicts actual history of when a person is born or has died, their birth and death years remain the same as their real counterparts. it helps give a sense of what timeframe this person lived. for places, i have added a bit more than just the starter 2 sentences to some City entries to give a general sense of what they are about in that timeframe, and today. perhaps it should also be moved to a BtS section.. what do you think? Jawajames 17:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC) ::In order to keep things official, we could use informationm from the Young Indy documentaries (unless it directly contradicts events in the series; Leo Tolstoy's fate, for example). Adamwankenobi 00:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC) :::That's of course a good idea. Still, I'm seeing a lot of info that I don't think are in those documentaries, either (I don't have them, so I can't say for sure, but it seems the sort of detail more likely to come out of a written work than a documentary). We really ought to have some sort of sourcing guideline for real-world material, and possibly limit it to certain circumstances or locations in the article, so as to not confuse readers as to what's confirmed as being the case in the Indyverse. jSarek 05:53, 19 September 2008 (UTC) ::::I've generally been erring on the side of detailing a bit more with real-world details than with what is specifically witnessed in the source material (especially with historical figures and locations that are based on real world locations). So much of Indy's world exists in the real world. I think that this information is useful in showing a fuller picture, especially when very little information is provided in the source material. I can see in some cases where I might have gone overboard with providing a lot of real world history/geography/science that is not explicitly stated in the sources, and mixed that information alongside information from the sources to make a single coherent entry rather than keeping the information separate. ::::For instance, Assiut gets a throwaway reference as an archaeological site. I decided to determine that Assiut was based on the real world site of Assiut, and thus placed it in Egypt, its real world location, and quickly summed up its history and significance in a few sentences as part of the general description. Should this information be relegated to a separate "Real World" section? Jawajames 06:37, 19 September 2008 (UTC) :::::I don't think it needs to be in a separate section, necessarily; I just think we need to be extra careful in ensuring we've got sourcing information for real-world material, and generally be keeping information not explicitly in Indy materials to fairly broad details to provide context. Should our readers want to learn more about the real-world counterpart in greater detail, there are (or should be) external links to Wikipedia in all articles where it's appropriate. jSarek 02:09, 22 September 2008 (UTC) ::::::i generally go for the broadest sense and post a WP link or two whenever i can. for some entries like Germany, providing context means providing a bit more than just the basics. someone pasted a huge amount of info from WP for Victoriano Huerta - we can definitely trim that down and integrate it better. Jawajames 05:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC) :::::::Yeah, Senor Huerta could probably use some trimming. Anyway, my point on the "sourcing" part was more about making sure our in-line sourcing for that material is complete. Since we should be doing that for the in-universe information anyway, it's even more important that we do it with information gleaned from non-Indy sources, since that info is technically non-canon. jSarek 05:20, 25 September 2008 (UTC) Just as a reminder about this - poor William Sleeman got his wiki article pasted into here - if you're going to put large sections of real-world info into a historical figure, place it into a "behind the scenes" section, and set up an external link to the sources used (like the wiki page for Sleeman). Jawajames 20:18, 5 January 2009 (UTC)